Description: ""No-No Boy" tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life "no-no boys". Yamada answered "no" twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. Unwilling to pledge himself to the country that interned him and his family, Ichiro earns two years in prison and the hostility of his family and community when he returns home to Seattle"--
Brief description: Lawson Fusao Inada has published several books of poetry, including Legends from Camp (1994), which won an American Book Award. He was also named Oregon's fifth poet Laureate in 2006.
Review Quotes:
"A gut punch of a novel . . . The bitter shame of having one's fealty questioned, the aching pain of family conflict, the lurking sadness of a community shattered by internment and beset by the existential question of how to truly belong to this country--with the particular honesty that fiction can afford, Okada manages to capture it all."
--Jane Yong Kim "The Atlantic"